Abstract: Systems and methods of rendering curves through iterative refinement are disclosed. One such method of rendering a curve from a polygonal control loop 0P comprises iteratively applying k subdivisions described by Js to a series of polygons starting with 0P, where each subdivision is applied to the previous polygon.

Abstract: A computer system stores and transmits compressed triangular meshes. The computer uses a data structure that represents a triangular mesh in n-dimensional space. The data structure has a table of vertex runs, a table of triangle runs, zero or more marching records, which provide the connectivity information of the triangular mesh. The data structure also has zero or more associated data records that include the geometric information of the triangular mesh. The table of triangle runs and the marching record have information that describes how to construct a triangular mesh (therefore, the polygon vertices and the boundary edges). The table of vertex runs describes a vertex spanning tree that provides additional connectivity information to construct the triangular mesh from the polygon. The associated data record determines the exact position of the triangular mesh in space.

Abstract: A view of a three dimensional scene is generated by organizing the view into successive co-centric subsets. For each subset of the view, image data for the subset is generated by rendering the primitives that form the three dimensional scene, whereby the resolution of the image data representing the subsets is varied amongst the subsets. The non-uniform resolution image data representing the subsets of the view is stored in memory. The non-uniform resolution image data is expanded to construct pixel data that represents a non-uniform resolution view of the three dimensional scene. The rendering operation is parallelized by performing a rasterization operation concurrent with a scaling and clipping operation. The rasterization operation rasterizes data defining a given primitive to generate image data that represents contribution of the given primitive to a particular subset of the view. The scaling operation scales data defining the given primitive.

Abstract: A computer system stores and transmits compressed simple triangular meshes. The computer uses a data structure that represents a simple triangular mesh in n-dimensional space. The data structure has a table of vertex runs, a table of triangle runs, zero or more marching records, which provide the connectivity information of the triangular mesh. The data structure also has zero or more associated data records that include the geometric information of the triangular mesh. The table of triangle runs and the marching record have information that describes how to construct a triangular mesh (therefore, the polygon vertices and the boundary edges). The table of vertex runs describes a vertex spanning tree that provides additional connectivity information to construct the triangular mesh from the polygon. The associated data record determines the exact position of the triangular mesh in space.

Abstract: In a graphics processing and display system wherein the view point is controlled according to position and orientation of a view point reference with respect to a representation of the displayed graphics data determined by a view point reference coordinate sensing system comprising a source and a sensor, wherein the sensor has a fixed position and orientation with respect to said view point reference and the source has a fixed position and orientation with respect to the schematic representation, calibration of the system requires two ordered steps: view point reference-sensor calibration and source-representation calibration. View point reference-sensor calibration is performed by registering and processing four configurations of the sensor housing. Source-representation calibration is performed by storing and processing three positions of the sensor housing.

Abstract: A graphics processing and display system includes a coordinate sensing system for determining position and orientation of a view point reference with respect to a schematic representation of at least one three-dimensional object; a view point controller for controlling a display view point according to the determined position and orientation of the view point reference with respect to the schematic representation; and a display processor for generating pixel data representing a two-dimensional rendering of the at least one three-dimensional object according to the graphics data and display view point, wherein the two-dimensional rendering is different from the schematic representation, and wherein the pixel data generated by the display processor is output for display on a display device.

Abstract: A computer graphics system includes a graphics processing engine for processing and displaying graphics data representing three-dimensional objects in a first portion of a display. A text processing engine displays text in a second portion of the display. Embedded in the text is a command or hotlink for controlling operation of the graphics processing engine. In response to user selection of first data displayed in the second portion of the display, a supervisory controller analyzes the first data to determine if the first data includes at least one hotlink command. Upon determining that the first data includes at least one hotlink command, the supervisory controller identifies the hotlink command included in the first data and controls operation of the graphics processing engine to perform at least one graphics function according to the hotlink command included in the first data.